Sins introduced Lawrence Block's greatest character, the unofficial private eye, Matthew Scudder. A former police officer who accidentally shot and killed a young girl while making an off-duty arrest, Matt carries the hard-drinking detective to its logical extreme by being a genuine alcoholic. As the series opens he's still in reasonable control, mainly maintenance drinking a mixture of bourbon and coffee that he sure makes sound good. He's left his wife and sons on Long Island and moved into a hotel in the City. He "does favors for friends" since he isn't licensed. And besides the drinking and the self-imposed isolation, he demonstrates his guilt by tithing ten percent of his earnings to the churches he frequents for reasons unclear to himself.

Here he's hired to help a father understand what went wrong in the life of the daughter who was recently brutally murdered by her gay roommate, who then hung himself in his jail cell after confessing. The title suggests a tad too much of what follows, but the novels are more about Scudder and his demons than the mysteries he takes on anyway. This one's a fine start to the series.